


peace certitude help for pain

by the_names_of_those_who_love_the_lord



Category: 20th Century CE RPF
Genre: I dunno if I should add the fellas as characters, Other, btw this isn't all in second-person POV that's just the summary, it's just to make it obvious who this is about I guess, they're the OCs of God
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:29:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28902678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_names_of_those_who_love_the_lord/pseuds/the_names_of_those_who_love_the_lord
Summary: It is like being in the ocean, out further than you realise and beyond the sight of the lifeguard. A huge wave bowls you over and sends you spinning across the seabed. You struggle to your feet and leap for a desperate breath, but a second, stronger wave fills your mouth with saltwater. The waves do not cease. You drown in stages.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 3





	peace certitude help for pain

**Author's Note:**

> Look. This is an experiment. It's not me coming out and throwing in my hat to be the world's most grossly insensitive person. If I get a rake of comments saying I should take it down, then I will. I was getting super pissed at all the fanfics about serial killers and school shooters, so I decided to even up the score a little bit. I hope it'll do what I want it to, but it probably won't. If you think it can be improved without being deleted, then please let me know. If it's unsalvageable, then so be it.
> 
> This contains the usual stuff you'd associate with Jeffrey Dahmer, but it's not explicit, and it's certainly not the work's USP.

... And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

\- 'Dover Beach', Matthew Arnold. 

* * *

The cops leave. Time gets sticky and fluffy, like a piece of food that got kicked beneath furniture and gets found a few months later when you're looking for something else. Then, an absence, like sleep but less restful. 

He first knows himself again when someone says "Hey, man," into the void where he had once been. A piece of the universe knows itself to be the man in question, and so partitions itself off from the rest and becomes a person again.

Konerak thinks he might be lying on a couch. He can feel the worn slickness of the vinyl upholstery beneath his cheek. His eyelids are gummed together. He grunts and raises himself up on his elbow, scrubbing at his crusted eyes with his other hand. Sound comes back in a long roar, like a wave rushing onto a stony beach. He dashes at the sleep-dust and peers upward through the bars of his stuck-together lashes.

The world is greyscale and cloudy. He blinks hard, and the values become hues. Shapes sharpen into objects. He still doesn't know where he is. He puts out his hand and says, "Give me my glasses."

This prompts a chorus of hissed whispering. Someone says, "He don't need 'em no more," and is possibly slapped. He hears it but doesn't see it. The world is dark, but the areas of darkness keep shifting. "Can anyone see my glasses? I really do need them, I swear. I can't see anything."

"Just give it a minute." This voice is very close. He thinks the owner might be crouching next to him, speaking low and calm into his ear. "Sight comes back last."

"Comes back from what?" Although his vision does seem to be improving by the second. He rubs his eyes again and flicks away the last crusted bits of mucus. The world comes into perfect focus, the best he's been able to see since fourth grade. "Um, okay, that's weird. Who are you guys?"

A crowd of what looks like all men, mostly Black, presses in closer to the couch. From where he sits, they seem like giants. He turns his head and sees a young-looking dude squatting beside him. Fey-looking, with huge dark eyes and a soft mop of hair that would be an afro if it stood up more. The kid smiles and says, "Any better?"

"Yeah....but I still need my glasses back, they cost my parents a lot of money." He sits up properly and peers at the crowd. "Again, who are you?"

"We'll get to that," the kid replies. His tone is still conspicuously soothing, like Konerak is a skittish wild animal or a mental case.

The thought of that makes him angry. "No, tell me now. There weren’t this many people when we -" He stops and thinks, _When what? Who's we?_

"Keep him talking," someone in the back murmurs. Then they leave, probably. Konerak hears people shuffling out of the way, and sees the crowd become less dense by one person as they spread into the new space, but he doesn't hear the door close. He presumes there's a door. He can't see beyond all these men.

The effeminate kid touches his hand to get his attention. "Hey, hey, look at me. Do you remember what your name is?"

"My name?" Fear turns over his stomach. "Have I been in an accident? Should I go to the hospital?"

There's a flickering as everybody trades glances. "No," says the kid. "No accident. But still, can you tell us?"

"Konerak Sinthasomphone, and why wouldn't I know my name? Where'd you all come from? When I came back to the apartment there was only me and -"

"He's getting there," someone calls. The feeling in the room changes; there is a kind of excitement evident, but what the men anticipate is not good. Konerak can no longer bear any of this. He stands up. As soon as he does, five or six people shout, "Woah, hold it!" They flow in behind him, pushing him into the middle of a circle. He looks behind himself, but can't see the couch he's been sitting on. The men press in on him, and he panics. "Let me go! This isn't funny!" He strikes out with the heel of his hand and catches the kid who's been talking to him on the mouth. The kid reels backward and knocks over the two guys behind him, leaving a gap in the crush. Konerak leaps over them through the gap and takes flight.

No, he literally takes flight. He thinks, _I gotta get out of here,_ and without taking a step shoots across the ground faster than he's ever dreamed. There's a wall and then there isn't a wall, he's in a hallway, and he stops and thinks _when did I go through a door_ but there's no time for that, there are voices behind him yelling at him to stop so he takes off again -

He slams off something so hard he bounces. Getting back to his feet, he peers up the murky hallway and sees nothing. Tries again. Same result.

"Are we gonna just keep letting him do that?" someone asks. 

"No, we are not." The sentence starts far down the hall, with the rest of them, and ends at his shoulder. "Listen. Konerak, right? I'm Jamie. C'mon, my guy, we'll explain everything."

"I'm not your _guy,"_ Konerak spits, but he lets Jamie - who seems to be this strange group's spokesperson - steer him back down the hall. The carpet glides beneath his still feet. He shuts his eyes.

They reach out to him and bring him back into what he realises now is an apartment. Once again, Konerak's brain glitches and fails to notice any evidence of them proceeding through a door. Some of the men move to form a circle around him again, but one of them - insanely tall, bald, sad-eyed - bats them away. "Let him look," he says, "it'll bring it on quicker."

Konerak is too afraid to ask what he's talking about. Breathing shallowly, he looks around the apartment. He knows he needs to remember something, but nothing here is familiar. Dollar-store artwork on the wall; framed portraits of half-naked male models, the kind you have to order away for. There's an armchair made out of the same cheap vinyl as the couch. It has a rust-coloured stain on the seat. Mismatched aspidistras stand sentinel at either side. Beneath his feet, the carpet is clean and worn. The men, who only minutes ago wanted to shield him from all this, move to stand behind him as he turns around.

The body on the couch, he notes, is wearing his clothes. It lies slumped diagonally, with its head cricked against the armrest and its bare feet trailing on the floor. Konerak looks at everybody and says, "We should help him."

"We are." Jamie, his guide through this, takes his hand and tugs at him. "You only have to look once."

Konerak lets himself be led to the sofa. His vision chimes and swims as he stares down at the stranger dressed in his own black dungarees. The boy's haircut is just as disastrous as his own, and he can't help but giggle. It comes out wrong. His shoulders tremble. Spit bubbles at the corner of his mouth. "Oh God," he croaks, and roars with laughter, tears searing his eyeballs and rolling lukewarm down his face. Arms stretch out from all sides and catch him as his knees buckle. "Oh my God, my hair looks so stupid."

* * *

It is like being in the ocean, out further than you realise and beyond the sight of the lifeguard. A huge wave bowls you over and sends you spinning across the seabed. You struggle to your feet and leap for a desperate breath, but a second, stronger wave fills your mouth with saltwater. The waves do not cease. You drown in stages.

* * *

He cries and clings to his body and beats them off when they try to pull him away. A door creaks somewhere, and the men become frantic: "He's coming back! He can't be in here for this!"

They scoop him up and carry him out of the room. Through the throng, he can see the man who brought him to the apartment go in the opposite direction. He's not wearing any clothes.

They bring him into the bedroom. There are three people on the bed. One of them has been a corpse for some time and is swollen past recognition. The others are sat together, their heads close.

The young white guy looks up when they come in. He brushes his fall of dark hair from his face and says, "Jesus, how old is he?"

Nobody answers. Konerak coughs and mutters, "Fourteen."

"Fourteen? That's all?" The man pats his friend on his shaking shoulder and gets up. "Christ, I am so sorry. This is...." He groans and looks around the stinking room. It's not big enough to safely throw a tantrum. Scattered belongings have collected along the walls like garbage at the beach. "This is disgusting. All of it."

Konerak says, "He lives like a pig."

The man grimaces. Close-up, he looks more like a boy. They all do, Konerak realises. Everyone here is so young. "You have no idea. I mean, look at this shit." He jerks his head at the bloated remains. The other man cranes his head around to stare at them all. He is Black, probably in his thirties. His face is silvered with tears. When he sees Konerak, his eyes widen, and he turns his back on them with a long moan, moving his hands in agitation.

"That's Tony," the younger explains. "He's deaf." He glances over Konerak's head at the men behind him. "Can you guys take over? I'll do the orientation." His mouth twists. The others flicker towards the bed, whispering, "Of course, of course," their palms outstretched to comfort the stricken deaf man sitting next to his shell.

In the cramped space between the bedroom and the bathroom, the guy leans against a wall closet and slithers to the floor. "C'mon and take the weight off your feet." He pauses, and winces. "Well, obviously you no longer weigh anything, but still. You must be tired. Fresh ones always feel tired for some reason." He scowls. "God, I'm being an asshole. Stand, sit, float, do whatever you -"

Konerak sits down quick. Anything to end that line of inquiry.

"Steve Hicks," the boy sighs, extending his hand. Konerak shakes it. It's like solid air, neither warm nor cold. "So. Konerak, you said? Am I saying that right? Great, great. Now, I know you must have some questions," and he drops his chin on his chest and closes his eyes.

Konerak waits, then prompts, "Yes?"

"Yes and?" Steve mumbles, not moving.

"You said I had questions, which I do. Exceptionally urgent, pressing questions, which I would like answered now. Immediately."

"Kid, I have done this shit twelve times by now," Steve replies, sounding three-quarters asleep, "and I would like to not have to do it anymore. So, please, make some educated guessezzzzz...." His voice trails off into a low snore.

"Done what twelve times?" This is met with a dreamy snort and a twitch of the fingers, but nothing more. "Steven! Wake up!"

Steve jumps awake. "What! No! Why!" He sees Konerak and calms down. "Oh, yeah, that's what I was avoiding." He exhales slowly and turns around to look him fully in the face. "Again, my deepest apologies. I have been doing this for....a long time. For too long. And it hurts, but you're just a kid, and you're brand new, so I gotta do it as best as I can." He grabs Konerak's hand. "What I am going to tell you will be very difficult to hear, and you have to be brave, but I promise you that the worst part is over forever." He gulps down a deep breath. "You...."

"Died. I died."

Hicks stops. He squeezes his hand. "You did. Twenty minutes ago."

Konerak holds his breath. His heart doesn't throb wildly the way it does usually, like when he's in contests on the school bus, he can make to forty seconds but Billy Hegarty from two blocks south can hold it for like a minute and a half, it's totally not fair - 

He realises that he has no particular desire to breathe. Shivering, he does so anyway. 

"Why does everybody always start with the breath thing?" Steve is saying. "Every time, I swear to God, it's literally the first thing they all did when I told them, and then they all looked so pleased with themselves, like they were gonna become pearl divers in Mexico - oh no, please don't cry. Wait, that's not what I'm meant to - um, cry if you need to. You can cry as much as you like."

Konerak buries his face in Steve's thick hair and howls.

"This is gonna kill my mom!" he wails. "My poor parents, what will they do? What will my brothers and sisters do? They don't know where I am!"

"Oh, boy," Steve murmurs, and puts his arms around him.

A noise like a dog panting comes from the sitting room.

* * *

"We should go back in the bedroom," Steve says quietly. "I don't want to disturb you, I know you're really upset, but you shouldn't see this."

Konerak raises his head. He's wept what feels like all the tears he ever had in him. "See what?"

"The....body." Steve gestures vaguely towards the sitting room. "He's gonna bring it past us in a minute. He always chops 'em in the bathroom."

"I'm not getting up for that freak," Konerak replies, clenching his fists. "I don't mind. Let me see."

But when the floorboards creak with the live weight of his killer and his corpse, Steve covers his eyes with his hands. Konerak tries to prise away his fingers, but Steve hisses "I won't let you see this, I can do that much," and holds on. 

The footsteps stop right beside them, and Konerak is suddenly wild with hope that he can see them, that this is all a monstrous prank, any minute now they're all gonna yell "Surprise!" and he'll be allowed to go home -

He hears the bathroom door being pushed open. The footsteps continue inside, and it creaks shut. Steve lets his hand fall.

"Was I naked?" Konerak asks.

Steve curls a lock of his hair around his finger and tugs at it. "It's not _you,_ it's just a body. What happens to it is irrelevant."

"So I was naked."

"Again, irrelevant. He can't hurt you anymore."

From inside the bathroom comes a meaty tearing noise, then a rapid _dripdripdrip_ of blood on tile. Konerak's killer pries open his ribcage with a symphony of snapping bones; his fumbling hands make soft squelching noises as they feel around in the viscera. 

"Oh yes he can," Konerak says. He draws his knees to his chin and hugs himself, rocking back and forth. "Is there no way to make him stop?"

"If there were, we would've found it by now. Kid, I swear, we've tried everything. He doesn't see or hear us, even in his dreams." Steve claps him on the shoulder and pulls him to his feet. "Come into the bedroom. I'll introduce you."

There are two Steves and two Tonys and two guys surnamed Smith. There's a couple of dancers, a couple of thieves, a few cashiers, a hustler. They come from Bath, from Chicago, from down the street. The oldest is thirty-one. He is the youngest. 

They ignore the corpse as best as they can, sitting on the floor. "I thought we could float," Konerak says. "Ghosts always float in the cartoons."

"We can float," says Curtis, and demonstrates. "We just thought you didn't know. We are trying to take this slowly."

Konerak experiments. It's like moving a limb - he no sooner thinks _go up_ than his new body obliges. He whooshes to the ceiling and bobs about. "This is much better than sitting on the floor," he announces. "C'mon, guys, it's fun."

He reaches down to Tony Hughes and pulls him up beside him. They all ascend, bouncing off the ceiling. Raymond goes straight through and comes back down wearing a sly expression. "That guy upstairs brought home a girl from the club."

"Shit, is she dead too?"

"Naw, but the sex looks freaky as hell." He looks sideways at Konerak and blushes. "Sorry, kiddo. Man, I really thought those cops were gonna flip Jeff's ass into jail tonight."

"They weren't interested in doing their jobs," Richard Guerrero growls. He cruises around the ceiling, working himself into a lather of outrage. "How many times have we gone through this? Tony S, your fuckin' ponytail was in his lunchbox at the chocolate factory. We all got so excited, thinking somebody was gonna find it. Half of Milwaukee must've seen the skulls on top of his bookshelf, but none of 'em ever believes they're real. I'm so sick of this! If that pig had bothered turning on the light in here, we would be in the station by now!"

"Bad times," Jamie murmurs. He swims through the air and hovers next to Konerak. "We were real proud of you, though. The shape you were in, we didn't expect you to make it out the door."

Konerak remembers little of his escape attempt. All that comes back is the overwhelming panic. He knows there was a pain in his head, concentrated in the front of his brain like a star to guide him. "Why did my head hurt so bad? What did he do?"

The ghosts bob uneasily. "You don't need to know that," says Eddie Smith. "It's not gonna help you now."

"Please," Konerak begs, but the matter is glossed over. He has crossed into a new country, and its residents are eager to explain its laws.

"Okay, first off." Steven Tuomi reclines on nothing and drifts by, counting on his fingers. "The most important thing to know is that, for better or for worse, you're attached to Jeff. You go where he goes. That's why you got knocked back earlier."

"You mean I can't even go to be with my family?" He thinks about his mother waiting for him to come home and is frantic. "I can't stay here! I have to go back! Surely there's some way of getting out!"

"Dude, we're really sorry, but I did nothing but test it for two years solid," Hicks tells him. He sounds worn down. "Jeffrey Dahmer is our new gravity. We go where he goes."

Konerak rockets through the ceiling and flits upwards, tears swarming behind his eyeballs. He bursts through three floors and manages to get halfway through the roof before he hits the invisible barrier. With his head in the sky and his feet in Apartment 412, he screams for his parents, for his brothers and sisters, until his voice gives way and he can taste copper at the back of his throat. Gentle hands close around his ankles and tug him back down. Defeated, he sinks back into the bedroom of 213.

"I lost my voice," he complains, scrubbing at his eyes with the heel of his hand. "How does that happen if I'm dead? Why can I cry?"

"We don't know for sure," Jamie replies, wiping the tears from his cheeks with the sleeve of his sweater. "Our best guess is that your spirit remembers what all that stuff felt like and is replicating it all out of habit. Or maybe we bring it with us when we die."

"I don't need my glasses anymore," Konerak reminds him croakily. 

"That's another thing." Jamie kicks through the air, pointing out examples. "Tony Hughes is still deaf. Eddie's still got a protruding collarbone. I'm as dyslexic as I ever was. But ghost-vision is always twenty-twenty." He does a lazy slow-motion frontflip and gives Konerak an upside-down smile. "Ernest thinks it's poetic. The dead see everything perfectly."

"I'm open to constructive criticism," Ernest Miller huffs. He vanishes into the bathroom and comes back looking like he sucked a lemon. "Yeaggh."

"Is he chopping me up?" Konerak asks. It gives him a peculiar thrill to speak of his body so cavalierly. A shudder ripples through those assembled like a Mexican wave.

"He....is," Hicks replies, suspended above the headboard like a dreamcatcher. "But....he's sort of taking his time, I think?" Miller nods, his mouth tight. "Ah."

"Taking his time, what the hell does it matter? He on the clock or something?" Konerak hurls himself into a bad-tempered cartwheel through the still air. "What do you guys do for fun around here?"

"Another bit of bad news," Jamie said, spiralling up to him. "What Jeff does, we do, and he doesn't really do 'fun'. Goes to work on the night shift, comes home in the morning, sleeps, jitterbugs around town a little. Kills people." He tucks in his knees and elbows and performs a few dozen Catherine's wheels at a speed the greatest gymnast would envy. "Although I was listening into his thoughts the other day. He wants to go to the Chicago gay pride in June. You'd like to see Chicago, wouldn't you?"

Konerak doesn't bother answering him. His throat is still sore. He curls up and lets himself sink to the floor, through the carpet, as far as the invisible barrier will let him go. Hicks was right; this is the greatest exhaustion he has ever felt. He wonders, _can I even sleep at all?,_ and then he does, flowing on his internal river towards a silent black sea.

* * *

When he wakes up, later that morning, it takes him a while to remember he is dead. When he realises, he goes into the apartment next door and screams at the tenant as he stumbles about half-asleep. After a couple of hours of that, he is calm and hoarse. He goes to Jeff's bedside and stares at him as he snores, his rangy arm thrown around the putrid body of Tony Hughes.

The others have their own ways of amusing themselves. Some are better at it than others. Steve Hicks, Konerak discovers, has been Dahmer's constant companion since 1978. Perching on the sitting-room windowsill, he tells Konerak about his coping strategies.

"I was totally alone until 1987," he says, looking not at Konerak but at a blackbird on a nearby telephone wire. "Ghosts look the same as regular people unless you see 'em doing ghost shit, and anyway, in the grand scheme of things, murderers are rare. I had to come with ways of keeping myself sane. Like, I spent a lot of time in Jeff's head, for example. I just synced with him and heard what he was thinking. I spent an entire month doing that back in '79. It took me a while to come back from that, so I wouldn't advise it for a shrimp like yourself."

"What else?" The thought of eavesdropping on Dahmer's brainwaves makes Konerak feel nauseous. 

"Look, kid, you got here at a bad time. Jeff used to have a more fulfilling existence. He went to college - washed out after one semester. I think he went to like two and a half lectures. Joined the army - that lasted a little longer. We went to Germany. This one time? We went for a walk in the mountains, and it was all snowy and shit, and we saw a family of boars -"

"Why do you say _we?"_ Konerak snaps. "He doesn't know you exist."

Hicks presses his hand to the window. It phases through. The blackbird takes fright and flies away. Hicks sighs. "I think animals can see us, but the others don't believe me. To answer your question, it makes me feel better. I couldn't conceive of it being me, by myself, and Jeff, also by himself. Not when we spent every moment together."

Konerak sits on the floor and runs his fingers across the weave of the rug. The sensation feels muffled, like sound from far away. "Okay. I get that, sort of. What can I do to pass the time and not go crazy?"

Hicks falls through the window and bobs in the breeze outside. Konerak gets to his feet and goes to find the others. 

In the bedroom, he only sees Tony Hughes and Jamie, who flutters over to him and gives him a hug. "This is the first day of the rest of your life."

"I'm not alive." It feels right to say, but monstrous. I am not alive, but I am still I. He is himself, removed permanently and catastrophically from his self.

"Ah." Jamie looks at him as though he can see these thoughts wicking past behind his eyes. "That's where it gets philosophical, my dude." He goes back to Tony Hughes and sits in front of him so that he can see his lips move. "Tony? I'm explaining something to Konerak. We are dead -" Tony trembles - "but we still _are._ We are sentient creatures which can walk through walls. It is only our bodies that have died."

Tony bites his lip and nods. He holds himself stiff, shuddering at five second intervals like the plucked string of a harp.

Konerak flops onto the bed, settling into the hills and valleys made by Jeff's legs entangled in the quilt. "Why are we the only ghosts? Everybody dies at some point."

Tony Sears shimmers into view. "Our working theory," he says, angling himself so that Hughes can read his lips, "is that folks who die naturally don't have any baggage, so they go.... _on._ We're too full of rage and hard feelings to go to Heaven."

Konerak eyes him. "Where did you come from? And where are the others?"

Tony S beams at him. "I heard you bugging Hicks about what to do for the next however many years Jeff's got in him."

"He went out the window and wouldn't answer me properly."

"He does that," Jamie agrees. "It's best to let him be. But Tony S and I can answer that question for you." He turns himself around so that both Konerak and Tony H can be included in the conversation. "Boys, let's face facts. Dahmer is still a young man. He's not gonna die anytime soon, and we're pretty sure that's the only thing that'll dissolve the bond that ties us to him. His life is boring, apart from when it is terrifying. You can either lose your minds living it with him, or...." He crosses his legs in mid-air and closes his eyes. A moment later, he vanishes. 

Konerak sits up. "Hey!" Hughes' eyes are wide.

Jamie pops back into existence, laughing. "Gentlemen, let's get to it."

There's no special trick; it's just meditation, which Konerak knows a little about. "Not much, though," he tells Jamie, as they float above the bed. "My parents raised us mainly Catholic, but they kept a lot of Buddhist traditions. I've never had formal training."

"That's alright," Jamie tells him. "It's hard at first, but all you have to do is push through it."

They go into the lotus position. Konerak closes his eyes. For a moment, all is quiet.

"Think about the situation you're in right now," Jamie murmurs. "You are dead. You are stuck with your killer."

Konerak thinks about this for about one tenth of a second. Then he opens his eyes and says, "No. Forget it. Surely Jeff has some board games." Beside him. Tony H is speed-signing, his eyes glimmering with angry tears.

Jamie shakes his head. "Guys, it helps. I swear. Can we try it? Just for a while."

Jeff rolls over in his sleep, dragging the blanket away from the body. Its decomposition makes it look like a felled tree in a swamp. Konerak glances at it and shuts his eyes. "Okay. But it had better work."

"It will. And you'll feel better for it. Just trust me."

So Konerak closes his eyes and forces himself to examine what has happened. It's like sticking his fingers into a gut wound. He keeps at it all day. At four-fifteen, as Jeff stumbles about getting ready for his night shift, he says, “I can’t do it, Jamie. And don’t say to try harder because I _am_ trying. I’m just not getting anywhere.”

“Dude, don’t worry. This is a bad place to learn it.” Jamie claps him on the shoulder. His hands are big, and he puts some force into it, but there’s no sting of pain. Instead, Konerak feels it echo through him, like he’s standing too close to the speakers at a school dance. “Try it at the factory.”

They drift after Dahmer as he makes his way through the apartment building. He has to take the elevator with its puddles and its smells, whereas his victims sink through the floors. They reach the lobby before their killer. Konerak peers out the doors and groans. “Aw, no. It’s raining like cats and dogs out there and I didn’t die with my jacket on.”

Oddly, this delights the others. “Rain?” Ernest Miller says. “Oh, sweet!”

“All heavy and shit,” agrees Raymond. He glides through the glass and stands in it, turning his head to the sky. Nonplussed, Konerak turns to a smiling Jamie for an explanation.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you. Weather feels different now. The sun is never too hot, twenty degrees makes you feel sparky inside, and rain? You won’t believe it, man. It’s the best part about being dead.” Jamie motions to the sodden world outside, where all the other ghosts are standing around, their eyes closed in rapture. “Go and try it out. You can thank me later.”

Konerak’s curiosity gets the better of him. He edges through the glass and steps out onto the pavement. His mouth falls open in shock, like when you look up on from yard work on a spring evening and see the sunset when you’re not quite ready.

Each droplet of water rolls through him, telling him where it’s been as it falls. He sees a humpback whale flinging herself out of the Atlantic; he sees a gutter; he sees the Cuyahoga burning for the last time. The water flows slowly through whatever he’s made of now like oil through treacle, teaching him about the world’s million thirsts.

Jamie comes up beside him and says, “Okay, Jeff’s finally here. I’m just gonna tug you along, okay? It can take a while to figure out how to ignore it.”

Konerak doesn’t answer. He’s five thousand miles away, riding on a forty-foot wave beneath a broiling sky.

* * *

The chocolate factory is loud, and smells weird. Nobody greets Dahmer when he walks in. He goes to his locker, trailed by the dead, and puts on his apron, gloves and hairnet.

“You look like a lunchlady,” Konerak taunts, even though he knows Dahmer can’t hear him. The others do, though, and they find it funny.

“Little man’s a comedian,” Eddie snickers. “You got any other jokes, kid?”

“I like making people laugh,” Konerak replies, smiling. “Like the guys at school, and my family….” The realisation that he will never see any of them again, nor they him, slams into his back like a train. He turns abruptly and runs for the doors, thinking, _This is madness! Why did I believe them when they said I couldn’t go?_

He makes it halfway across the road outside before the barrier knocks him backwards. As he stumbles backward, a car roars up, its headlights blinding him. He flinches away from an agony that never comes; the car passes through him, or rather he passes through the car. He makes uncomprehending eye contact with the backseat passengers as they phase past, not seeing him. A moment later, the car is gone, leaving Konerak trembling in fright on the asphalt. The rain falls into him, leaving ceaseless trails of new memories embedded in his not-flesh.

Jamie comes up beside him and gently pulls on his arm. “I know it’s hard. Come on back inside.”

Konerak lets himself be guided back. He doesn’t realise he’s crying until Jamie swipes the sleeve of his sweater across his eyes.

* * *

Inside is hot and loud. Konerak crouches in a corner, his fingers in his ears. Steve H squeezes his shoulder and says, “Try it here.”

Konerak opens his eyes and says, “Try what?”

“The meditation thing. It’ll work better here.”

Konerak snorts. “No it won’t.”

“Little buddy, trust me on this one. It’s genuinely easier when it’s all noisy and the guys aren’t distracting you.” At that, Konerak glances around; it’s just him, Steve, and poor Tony H. The others must find the factory as intolerable as he does.

“Alright,” he sighs, and kicks himself into the air. He swims across to press Tony’s hand to comfort him, then floats upwards, bobbing about the ceiling like a lost balloon. He folds himself back into the lotus position and breathes in

_don’t remember anything alive on Saturday morning dead on Sunday morning had a shower went out to the park then what_

out

_my head hurt so bad had to run no clothes almost fell down the stairs the gravel on the road cut my feet there were women holding me why did they let me go a blanket a hand on my arm pain everywhere at once marched me back the way I came_

in

_the clanking of machinery the thicksweet smell of molasses heat rising from the vats his knees hurt from lifting the sugarbags his eyes sting in the steam the night shift is the worst all that mess to clean up when he gets home_

out

_the heartbeats that limp into silence hands crushing throats the water rushing into the lungs instead of air the dead walking towards him each holding a covered candle_

in.

_Hey little buddy_

_Who is that_

_Tony S_

_Why can’t I see you_

_Because you made it_

_Made it where_

_This is where we go when we want a break from the world_

_Oh my God I actually did it_

_You did we’re proud of you_

_How do I get out of it I want to tell Tony H_

_Just sort of wriggle it’s hard to explain_

Konerak wriggles. The sounds of the factory roar in his ears. He opens his eyes and says, “Tony?”, but Hughes is nowhere to be seen. Hicks pops back into view, laughing.

“You guys did it! One after the other! It took me a fucking _decade_ to learn how to do that, but you both took to it right away!”

Konerak feels weirdly pleased with himself. “What is it exactly? Is it Heaven?”

Hicks shakes his head. “I don’t think so. Although this one time two months ago, I was in there with the others, and we heard girls talking. It sounded like they were behind a thin wall.”

“I guess it’s not just for us,” Konerak offers. “Maybe we share it with other people without knowing.”

Hicks smiles, but then he says, “Not people. Ghosts.”

“What?” Then Konerak remembers. It hurts like a briar in the heart. “Oh, God. Hicks, please don’t.”

“I know how you feel.” Hicks leans down and looks him in the eyes. “All I can tell you is that it won’t be like this forever. It _can’t_ be _._ It’s not what we were promised in the Bible. Our salvation is delayed, but it’ll come. In the meantime, we have a way to wait it out.”

Konerak gasps in a breath he doesn’t need and nods. Hicks steps back and vanishes. He closes his eyes and breathes in slowly, thinking about the blood on the tiles.

* * *

The sightless place is calm and quiet. It exists outside time and away from the self. Konerak spends a month dissolved in its merciful suspension, idly plucking on the strings of the universe and listening to the whispered conversations of the others. Once, he distinctly hears a little girl say, “I won’t come out until he dies,” in a clipped Chinese accent. “Same here,” he calls, but she never replies. He senses her presence from time to time, though, as a baby feels its twin move in a separate amniotic sac. Her prelapsarian anger jags through the dark.

On June 30th, Jamie reaches in and pulls him out. Konerak blinks in the light; they’re in the middle of a crowd. He yawns and shields his eyes. “Jamie, where are we?”

“It’s the Chicago gay pride parade! You can’t miss this!”

“The _what?_ Uh, listen, it’s very colourful and all, but I really don’t swing that way.”

Jamie cackles and gives him a good-natured shake. “Oh my God, shut up! Only we can see you, and we don’t think you’re gay.”

“We don’t?” says Steve T. Jamie kicks him in the shin and links Konerak’s arm. There are rainbows everywhere. People’s faces are painted with them. He sighs and lets Jamie guide him through.

It’s actually fun. He’s forgotten what it’s like to be in public. He can smell the sweat, the hot blacktop, the food from roadside stalls. How good it is, to still be able to smell things.

He discovers, for the first time, that most if not all of his friends are some version of not-straight. They know things that he doesn’t, like why so many guys have bandanas hanging out of their pockets, or why some people are wearing leather waistjackets over bare chests. He asks about it, but they brush him off with a wry, “Aw, you’re just a baby. It wouldn’t be nice of us to tell you.”

Of course, they can’t just go where they like. Jeff’s in charge, and his tastes do not run to the happy and the proud. He watches the parade with disinterest, curling his mustachioed lip in derision at the banner reading NEW TOWN ALANO CLUB: SOBER – CLEAN – GAY. He wanders frustratingly far from the action, buying a hotdog at a stand and picking at the onions. He stares with alcoholic longing at Carol’s Speakeasy, not open until ten pm. The others do the best they can to enjoy themselves. Konerak notices that Ernest Miller looks a little tense.

“What’s up?” he asks.

“Oh, nothing, nothing,” Ernest replies absently, before hissing something into Curtis’s ear. Their faces are drawn tight and say nothing, but their hands are clenched into fists.

Konerak tries to ignore it. He, Jamie and Tony H soar as high as they can and pretend to be parade floats. The heat of the sun feels like a good dream on their ephemeral backs. Tony’s eyes are huge with wonder. They hover kestrel-style above the street, swooping low to say hi to the unwitting marchers, then climbing the thermals in loose spirals. Konerak stretches his arms wide to feel the breeze and laughs, wishing he could bring his family up here.

They pass the rest of the afternoon like that. The sun begins its lazy journey to Australia. They watch the clouds, pushed through the sky by the barrier as Jeff moves around below. At half-nine, Steve T kicks his way up to them, unsmiling.

“Everybody come down. We need to pray.”

“What? Who for?”

“Some dude Jeff’s talking to at the bus stop.”

“Oh Christ.” Jamie stoops like a hawk. Konerak motions to Tony H and follows him down.

Jeff is at the bus stop, talking to a short, slim Black guy with a mohawk. His name is Matt. He’s local – works as a busboy at a pizzeria, lip-syncs on weekends at the bars. Enjoyed the parade. Jeff smiles at him, and he giggles and bows his head. Whispers something into his ear that makes the murderer smirk.

Hicks, his face drawn, draws his clasped hands up to his lips and starts them off. “O Lord, you left the ninety-nine sheep safe in the fold and searched the mountains for the one who was lost. We who are astray in the wilderness implore you: speak to this man. Speak for us, the unheard, and steer him away from the devil.”

He nods at Tony S, who continues, “Lord, we who walk in the valley of darkness long for your light. Show it to us today by saving this man from what we have suffered. Please help us. Please.”

His voice chokes, and he gestures at Errol Lindsey, who nods and murmurs, “O God, you let all of us die. You didn’t even spare our brother Konerak.” (Konerak looks up sharply.) “We beg of you to let this man live. You’ve interceded for us before – we’re asking you to be merciful and do so again today. If Matt does go to Apartment 213, let him leave alive.” He pauses. “In Jesus’ name, amen.”

“Amen,” the rest chorus. The bus pulls up. Jeff puts his arm around Matt’s waist, who shyly runs his fingers through his lank hair. They board the bus together. The ghosts all groan, and they tramp noiselessly up the steps after them.

Konerak catches Jamie by the arm. “Why did Errol say that I’m your brother?”

“What? Oh, that’s just a figure of speech. It’s a Black thing – brother from another mother, y’know?”

“I have four brothers already,” Konerak snaps. “I don’t need any more.”

Jamie gives him a strange look. Without saying another word, he twists away from his grasp and vanishes.

* * *

They keep praying – in the bus, in the cab, in the elevator. When the door of 213 closes and Matt reaches up and kisses Jeff on the mouth, Steve T starts crying and leaves them for the dark place. Konerak watches from the ceiling as Jeff manoeuvres his new friend onto the couch and lies on top of him.

He turns to Ernest and says, “Is this what he did with me? I don’t quite remember.”

“You only posed for him in your underwear,” Ernest replies. His tone is dull, as though Konerak is pestering him to watch a movie he really doesn’t like. A moment later, he’s gone too.

“Hey,” Jamie says. He’s leaning against the doorframe, looking bored. “You want to, y’know, go? This is gonna get a little steamy.”

“I thought we were meant to be praying,” Konerak retorts. Below him, Matt sits up and takes off his shirt. Jeff seizes him and presses his ear to his chest, his eyes squeezed shut in rapture. He averts his eyes.

“I’ll pray with you,” Errol offers. Jamie cuts his eyes at them both and stays where he is.

Errol takes Konerak’s hand and leads him away from the deteriorating makeout session in the sitting room. They drift up to Apartment 313, which isn’t let.

“Why is Jamie so snippy?” Errol asks, standing in the middle of a chair draped with a dust sheet. “I saw you guys talking on the bus, and he’s been in a bad mood since.”

“Maybe he was upset about the dude Jeff brought home,” Konerak says, turning away.

Errol shakes his head. “Naw, man. I know Jamie a little, and he’s seen so many of us die that it doesn’t even register with him anymore.” He moves out of the chair and hovers at Konerak’s shoulder. “What’s up with you two?”

Konerak sighs. He picks at his nails, although they’re never dirty these days. “Okay, so, you know that thing you said earlier, at the bus stop? When you called me your brother?”

Errol nods.

“Um….this is gonna make me sound like a huge jerk. I kind of didn’t vibe with that. I mean, I know what you’re saying, and I really appreciate it. But….I already have brothers.” A lump swells in his throat. “And I really miss them. I haven’t seen my family since May, and I might never see them again. They don’t even know what happened to me.” He swallows. “I don’t want to replace them with a bunch of people I don’t even know. No offence.”

Errol is quiet. Konerak can’t bear to look at him. He thinks, _oh, God, I’ve messed it up with all these people and I probably have to spend the next fifty years with them._

Just before he can escape into the dark place, Errol’s hand closes on his shoulder. “Little man, wait.” His voice is so soft that Konerak can’t read his tone. He turns around anyway and faces him.

Errol pulls him into a crushing hug. Konerak gasps into his shoulder and wraps his arms around him. It’s like falling into a lake – cold as a stone, rippling with strange currents. Errol is elemental.

He releases Konerak and holds him in front of him. His face is bright with compassion. “Listen to me for a moment. I understand exactly how you feel.”

“You do?”

“Of course! You think I crawled out of the ocean? I had a family too, man. I got my sisters looking for me, and I know they’re never gonna find me. Not here. Nobody will ever become for me what Rita and Yohunna are. But there’s the family you’re born with, and the family that you pick up along the way. We can’t be your brothers. What we are instead is a _brotherhood._ Nobody’s ever spoken about it, but we’ve got this unspoken pact to look out for each other for as long as we exist like this.”

Konerak nods. Tears spring to his eyes. There’s no stinging sensation. “I’m less of a person with every day that goes by,” he chokes.

Errol only says, “Pray with me. We’ll feel better if we do.”

They kneel down on the bare floorboards facing away from one another, resting their elbows on different chairs. The dust doesn’t get on the knees of their pants. They pray to themselves for a long time (Konerak asks for what he always asks for, that this’ll all turn out to be a fucked-up dream, and also that Matt won’t die), and then at Errol’s suggestion they do the Lord’s Prayer.

When Konerak opens his eyes, he sees a pair of long legs in corduroys at the corner of his eye. He looks left and upwards. Jamie meets his gaze and says evenly, “How’s it going?”

Konerak taps him on the knee and says, “Hey, I’m sorry about earlier.”

Jamie blinks. “Dude, it’s no problem. I understand.”

“No, really. It….it would be an honour to have you guys as brothers.”

“You literally don’t have a choice.” Jamie pulls him to his feet and slaps him on the back. Again, the echo. “Me and the boys are gonna look out for you until the last trumpet. And it’s a good thing that you’ve worked out your feelings on this whole brotherhood of the dead thing, because we’re in the process of accepting a new member downstairs.”

* * *

Unlike as with Konerak, Jeff starts desecrating the body right away. Richard frogmarches Konerak into the kitchen and tells him to stay there. “And don’t look in the big pot on the stove,” he calls over his shoulder.

“What’s in it?”

No reply.

Konerak hasn’t investigated the kitchen before, and he’s never been in the bathroom. The others have yet to offer him a full tour, and he hasn’t wanted one until now.

The pot on the stove is the obvious starting point. He tries lifting the lid, but his hand just passes through the handle. An idea strikes him. He sticks his head through the side of the pot. His supernatural eyes are good for the tinny dark. He comes face-to-parboiled-face with himself. All the melanin has been cooked out of the flesh, and his eyes and hair are gone.

“Oh, jeez,” he whispers, and extricates himself from the pot. In the fridge, he finds a bottle of mustard, meat wrapped in plastic bags, and Errol’s head in a cardboard box on the bottom shelf. He takes a moment to note how it looks without his kind spirit animating it, then flows through the walls into the bedroom. He checks on the remnants of his and Tony H’s torsos in the blue barrel, turning slowly to slime in the acid.

He steals into the bathroom. It smells coppery. Unidentifiable scrags of flesh, badly preserved in formaldehyde, line up in jars on the shelf where the shampoo and the soap are meant to go. Konerak peers through the thick glass, trying to figure out what part of the body one specimen belongs to; a voice from the door interrupts him.

It’s Curtis. “Don’t look at those,” he warns, floating towards him. “Shit’s nasty.”

“What are they?”

“Never you mind. It’s just skin, okay?” Curtis was snappish and impatient even when alive; his grip on Konerak’s arm hurts a little as he tugs him through the door. “C’mon into the living room. The new guy’s about ready to join us.”

Konerak lets himself be dragged in. He supposes that the scene which greets them is a replay of the night he came to them, except for the embarrassment of Jeff on top of the corpse, naked as the day he was born and groaning, his mushroom-coloured backside going like a piston. Konerak finds it so funny that he can’t stand it. He bites down on his fist and doubles over, shaking with smothered giggles, ignoring the glares of all the dead adults in the room.

A young man’s voice rises above the rapid panting: “Who’s laughing?” Petulant. Annoyed, even.

Konerak straightens up. “I’m sorry, man,” he wheezes. “It’s just – look at him go!”

Matt Turner gets to his feet and looks.

* * *

It takes them all three hours to calm him down (Errol is dispatched to the dark place to retrieve Hicks from his dreamtime). Meanwhile, Jeff ejaculates twice onto the corpse and gets started on the dismemberment process. This takes place in the bathtub, and consists of necrophilia, fairly competent knifework, and photography. Every time he wants to take a picture, he has to wash the gore off his hands.

Konerak, excited, flits between watching him at his business and checking up on Matt, who’s taking it harder than most. If someone had told him on the morning of May 26th that, in one month’s time, he would be watching a man get chopped up by a naked guy, he’d have had concerns regarding that person’s mental health. Now, though, he finds that he’s already used to it. It’s not even the most interesting thing happening in Apt. 213. That would be the new arrival’s struggle to accept his own death.

Matt sniffs back his tears and rubs his eyes angrily. “Okay. Repeat everything you just said, and try making a little more sense.”

Hicks accepts this with a nod. “You remember Jeff Dahmer, right? Took you home from Chicago earlier? Couldn’t get hard? Gave you a cup of coffee? That coffee was drugged with Lorazepam….”

Matt starts crying again. He turns away.

“He strangled you,” Hicks says, determined to finish his story. “You didn’t suffer.”

“I never thought this would happen to me,” Matt weeps. He sinks to the floor; Jamie gets down beside him and puts his arm around him. “I mean, you hear about it, but you never think….” He glances up at everyone. “He seriously killed all of you?” He points at Konerak. “He’s only a little kid.”

“Hey!” Jamie chirps. “Just because I’m taller ‘n you don’t mean I’m not just as much of a baby as Konerak.”

Matt stares at him, mouth hanging open. Konerak barges forward and kneels down in front of him. He takes his hands and says, “Listen. I know this is really tough. I don’t know when it’ll stop. But you don’t have to do it by yourself. You’re our brother now, and we’re gonna take care of you.”

* * *

To the surprise and chagrin of Jeff’s other houseguests, Matt’s circumstances galvanise him towards action. Seven hours after his own murder, with the body he woke up in the previous morning turning into soup in the barrel, he rounds on Konerak, Jamie and Curtis and informs them that they’ve seen their last corpse.

“Fucking _what?”_ Jamie is displeased. “Dude, you can’t tell us what to do! You just got here! If I were still alive, I’d be older than you!”

“Well, you’re not still alive,” Matt informs him crisply, “so what I say goes. It’s not healthy for kids to see stuff like this.”

“How’re you gonna keep us from seeing it?” Curtis drawls. He leans against the bedroom doorframe, his arms crossed. “This apartment is tiny.”

“You could stay in the dark place,” Hicks offers. Jamie and Curtis shoot him a matched pair of scowls. “Look, dudes, I’m sorry, but Matt’s got a point. Konerak, I saw you sneaking into the bathroom earlier.” Konerak harrumphs and looks away. “Yeah, that’s right. Decided to go exploring, didn’t you? I’m worried about the effect this whole freak show is having on you all.”

Matt looks intrigued. “What’s the dark place?” Hicks explains it, and he nods. “That sounds like a good idea. In fact, I don’t see why they’re not there now. Is there a way to keep them there until that animal dies?” He gestures at Jeff, who is sat on the couch, happily reviewing his new Polaroids.

“You can’t ever make someone go into the dark place, or stay there,” David Thomas says wearily. “It’s their choice.” He pauses. “Although I’m with you and Hicks. Jamie, you’re entirely desensitized. Curtis, Konerak, you guys aren’t much better, and you’ve been here for a lot less time.” The three of them bristle. “Now, don’t you all make those faces at me! I really think you all should float in the void or whatever until this all quietens down.” He stands up. “In fact, we _all_ should. There’s no reason for every single one of us to be here all the time. Praying for the guys Jeff picks up doesn’t seem to be working.” (Tony S and Errol frown.) “I propose that, from now on, everybody but one will stay in the dark place. The one who stays out can take care of any new victims. We’ll take it in turns on, say, a weekly basis. We’ll keep it up until Jeff either gets caught, killed, or bites the big one on his own steam.”

“Hold on,” Ernest says from the armchair. “I think the kids could do with a long-ass nap to keep ‘em from whatever Jeff’s gonna pull next, but we’re big boys. We can handle this shit.” No-one answers. “Or are we not handling it? Can I get a little feedback here?”

Tony S raises a finger. “I resent what David said about the prayers not working.”

David points at Matt. “Well, we prayed our asses off today, and there’s our answer! We had this exact same argument when Konerak died, and again when Tony H died, and by God, I will _not_ rehash it with you.”

Tony S steps forward with his chest puffed out. David raises his fists and clenches his jaw. For a moment, it looks like they’re about to find out once and for all whether a ghost’s teeth can get knocked out. But Hicks intervenes. Ernest says, “I take it back. We’re falling apart. Let’s have a vote: who wants to do what David suggested?”

The hands are slow going up. Konerak raises his own, not looking at Jamie as he does. But a big, callused hand wraps around his own and squeezes, and he knows he’s already forgiven.

There are ten hands in the air. Ernest nods curtly. “The ayes have it. Alright. Konerak, Jamie, Curtis – see you guys in fifty years, I guess. Gentlemen, who’s on duty first?”

“I’ll do it,” Hicks says. He gets to his feet and stretches. “It’ll be just like the eighties. Like old times. Just me ‘n Jeff.”

People begin disappearing. Matt puts his hand on Konerak’s shoulder. “Kid, you’ve made a good decision. Nobody should have to see this kind of thing.”

Konerak sighs. “You know, for someone who woke up dead, you’re very assertive.”

Matt’s lips tighten into a thin line. “I have no other choice.” When Konerak doesn’t move, he gives him a gentle push. “Off you go, baby brother. Hicks?”

Hicks gives him an appraising look. “What’s up?”

“If you’ve really been by yourself with Jeff before, it’s not fair for you to do it again. Train me how to get to the dark place, then go in yourself. I’ll handle the next couple of guys who come in.”

Hicks frowns. “I dunno, Matt. I mean, you’re brand new – are you sure you’ll be able to handle that?”

“Of course! I’m a lot tougher than I look.” They both catch Konerak staring at them.

“Okay, buddy, off you go,” Hicks tells him. “I’ll be along in a while.”

Without saying anything, Konerak folds himself into the silence.

* * *

Someone grabs his ankle and yanks him out. He lands on his stomach, groaning at the foul smells and loud noises of the world. As he gathers his senses, he realises what the noises are, and opens his eyes.

Jeff, too, is on his stomach, a cop’s jackboot on his back. Another cop clips on the handcuffs. Jeff’s face is purple from screaming. Looking directly at Konerak, he mutters, “For what I’ve done, I should be dead.”

“You gotta work on the sentence structure, but I really appreciate the sentiment,” Konerak replies. He gets to his feet and brushes himself off. “Okay, who hauled me into this mess?”

The answer, as it turns out, is Eddie. Long arms wrap around Konerak, and he is enveloped in an angular hug. “Oh, baby,” Eddie says. He’s crying. “Honey, we’re getting out of here.”

Konerak puts a hand on Eddie’s rangy arm. “Is it real this time?”

“Look at him with the handcuffs on!” Eddie aims a vicious size-twelve kick at Jeff; it sails harmlessly through him. “Sorry-ass little white boy! I wish I never laid eyes on you.”

Konerak diplomatically disentangles himself and goes to find the others. They’re over in the kitchen, giving a cop unheeded instruction.

“Hey, donut eater! Check the fridge! My head’s on the bottom shelf!”

“Man’s got my heart in there, too!”

“C’mon, porkchop! Get your keister in the bedroom and take a look in the barrel!”

“Don’t forget the bathtub, Officer Krupke! That bleach solution burns a brother!”

Konerak grins and slings his arm around a Black guy whom he doesn’t recognise. “Konerak Sinthasomphone, eighth grade at Pulaski High School. What’s your name, soldier?”

The man smiles. “Why, you’re just a little kid! I’m Oliver Lacy. Man, I barely been here five minutes. This is crazy. Where’ve you been all this time?”

“The dark place! Matt Turner made me ‘n the crew hide out in there ‘til Jeff got arrested. How many guys have passed since the end of June, do you know?”

Oliver grins and rubs his chin. “Yeah, Matt said something about that, but I've never been a meditation guy, y'know? I’m here since July 15th. You see Jeremiah over there? He died before me. Joe is the last.” He indicates two men hovering in one corner of the ceiling like spiders, one olive-skinned, the other white. They both have the disbelieving stares of the very recently dead. Konerak looks at them and back at the cheerful Oliver, biting his lip.

“Excuse me for a moment,” he says, and goes to find Matt. The young man is in the bedroom, watching one of the officers try to get the lid off the barrel.

“Hey there, kiddo,” he says. He nods at the cop and calls out, “You wanna be careful, big boots, there’s a fuckton of acid in there.”

Konerak stands beside him and watches. After a carefully-judged moment of silence, he says, “I just had the pleasure of meeting Oliver Lacy. For a guy faced with the existential crisis of his own death, he’s doing pretty well. In fact, he’s doing way better than the two other dudes. What were their names?”

“Jeremiah and Joe,” Matt tells him, and sighs. “I don’t think Oliver’s fully realised the gravity of what’s happened to him. Hell, I’m struggling with it, and I’ve been dead for a month. When it sinks in we’ll all need to be there for him.”

Konerak nods. “How come I never heard them in the dark place?”

Matt turns away. "I couldn't teach them in time. These past few days have been.... God, Konerak, it was like an abbatoir." Matt rubs his temples with the heels of his hands. "It got to the point where Jeff was entertaining a live guy in the sitting room and there were two dead guys in the bathtub." He looks ruefully in the direction of the kitchen, where Hicks has arrived back in to watch the cops dismantle Jeff's charnel house. "Hicks is kind of annoyed that I didn't pull him out of the dark place to deal with it, but I wanted to handle it myself."

He turns back to Konerak and puts a hand on his shoulder. 

"Here, let me promise you something. I won’t ever make you go back to the dark place again. Not if you don’t want to. We’ve got a tough journey ahead of us, and the only way we’re gonna make it through is as a family. We need to support one another. Do you understand?”

Konerak nods.

“Good. Good.” Matt holds him by the shoulder, his eyes looking past him into the sitting room. A cop says, “Let’s go.” His fingers tighten.

“…Matt?”

“What?”

“They’re taking Jeff away. We should follow them before the barrier moves.”

Matt exhales and lets him go. “I hope we can keep up with the squad car.”

* * *

As they zip through the dark streets, easily pacing the cops with Jeff bruising in the back seat, Errol starts singing: _There’s a power in the name of Jesus…._ The other Black guys recognise the hymn and fill in, yelling the chorus with all their might: _Break every chain! Break every chain! Break every chain!_ Tony S flies twelve stories above the street so that God can hear him better: “Oh, hallelujah! Thank you! Thank you so much for saving us!”

“We serve a living god!” Jamie cries out in response. Tears of pure happiness make his dead face shine. He catches up with Konerak and whispers, “We’re out. We’re never going back there. Our families are gonna know what happened to us!”

Konerak can’t speak. He clings to Jamie’s shirttail and rests for a while, letting the cruiser’s jetstream flow through him.

At the station, Jeff is brought into an interview room. The ghosts embed themselves into the walls so that the space won’t get crowded. A detective with a handlebar moustache and a Colt on his hip comes in and introduces himself as Patrick Kennedy. Jeff fiddles with the zip on his windbreaker and mumbles, “Please don’t let them hit me anymore.”

Konerak hasn’t heard him speak since the night he died. At once, he remembers why he went back to the apartment with him. That voice had spoken about paying him money for pictures, but it didn’t belong to a child molester. It was the voice of the bowling-alley attendant who would have his shoe size on the counter when he saw him come in, and the guy at the arcade who lived in his mom’s basement and would tell him the secret combos for Street Fighter II. When Jeff propositioned him at the Grand Avenue Mall, he sounded like someone who couldn’t cut it in the adult world, someone who felt safer with kids. The kind of person whom Konerak trusted, unthinkingly, with his life.

He wishes he could throw up.

* * *

After a boring interlude, where the only incident of mild interest occurs when Jeff makes a half-hearted play for Kennedy’s gun, the confession begins. It quickly becomes apparent that Jeff, being his usual pain-in-the-ass self, is doing it in chronological order. Hicks sends everyone out so that he can hear about how he died, saying that he’ll get Steve T when it’s his turn.

Konerak grabs Jamie, and together they drift around the station. After weeks – in Jamie’s case, years – of being trapped in Apartment 213, the change of scene is a relief. They peer into the bullpen to see if they know anybody. They slip into the locked evidence room, whipping through the boxes in a race to be the first one to find weed. (Jamie wins.)

They bob down a corridor and turn a corner. There’s a young girl standing at the end, looking into the offices with a furrowed brow. It’s strange that what looks like a twelve-year-old in hanging around a police station past midnight, but they brush it off.

It’s only when she looks at them and says, “Oh, there you are!” that they realise this might be somewhat significant.

They turn tail and fly back up the corridor, rocketing into the interview room. Steve T lifts his head and says, “Jamie, stick around, will you? He’s almost done with – “

“There’s a girl!” Konerak shouts. “She can see us!”

“She _what?!”_

“She saw us, I swear! She was looking for us! She said ‘there you are’ or something!”

“That – that doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” Steve stammers. “Maybe there was a living person behind you guys – “

“Steve, we’re telling you, she’s a ghost! This building is probably full of murderers – “

“I know, Jamie, but – “

“Oh my God, why don’t you believe us?”

“Boys?”

The girl’s small, sure voice interrupts them – but not Jeff, who continues on about how he put Steve’s body in a suitcase and got a cab driver to help him with it. They turn as one to look at her. Konerak feels his not-there heart thump.

She’s white, with fluffy brown hair that falls to her shoulders and a broad, handsome face. She smiles, showing new permanent teeth, and says, “My apologies. I didn’t mean to startle you.” Her accent suggests the south.

Konerak steps forward and asks, “Who are you?”

“Kim Leach. Before you ask, yes, I am dead, no, it was not peaceful. All you need to know is that Ted Bundy was executed on the 24th of January, 1989, and I was mighty thankful to the state of Florida for services rendered.” She gives them a wry grin. “The ladies and I heard there were guys getting their tickets punched up north and wanted to travel up to see if we could help y’all acclimatise, but Mr. Dahmer was hard to find.”

“You _heard_ about us?” Jamie heaves himself onto the table and sits there like a big toddler, staring at Kim. “From who? I know I never saw any dead people save for my brothers.”

“You boys think you’re the only ghosts in the world? The Gacy crew started hearing Chicago accents in the dark place and got interested. They tried calling to you, but it’s like tryin’ to communicate at the bottom of the ocean in there. They managed to send word to us to investigate – “

“The Gacy crew? Huh?”

“Man, you guys are green as H–E–double hockeysticks.” Kim giggles and tosses back her hair. “I’ll tell you everything you need to know, but can it wait?” She gestures at Jeff, who’s wrapping up his explanation of how he disposed of Steve T. “I’m kinda interested in hearing what this guy has to say.”

Steve gives her a doubtful look. “I dunno, little lady. It’s wildly inappropriate for kids, and you don’t look much more than twelve.”

All the gaiety washes out of Kim. She stares at Steve like he’s punched her in the mouth.

“I have been twelve since 1978, and I will never get older,” she growls. “Let me listen.”

* * *

It takes Jeff days to confess. The delay is caused in part by his inability to remember several people, which necessitates a tiresome game of trying to stir recollections with missing-persons photos. Throughout the days, his victims bob in and out to see if he’s reached them yet. One by one, they are quietly introduced to Kim, who explains herself in hissing whispers. Each accepts her, distracted by the revelations regarding how he died.

Finally, Konerak’s turn comes. When Jeff says, “I met a guy at the Grand Avenue Mall this May just gone,” the others tactfully drift out of the room. At a glance from Konerak, Jamie stays; so does Hicks. Kim floats with her legs crossed, frowning.

When Jeff gets to the part when he was coming back from the liquor store and saw Konerak with the girls who were trying to save him, her mouth falls open. She glances at Konerak, then at Jamie, and says, “Seriously?” They don’t answer her.

Jeff won’t shut the fuck up. “You know, Pat,” he says, in that inoffensive Midwestern drawl, “when I first saw those girls with him, I panicked. I should’ve just ran and let them handle it. But something made me go over there and try to brazen it out.” He stubs out his cigarette and retrieves another from the pack in one smooth motion of his hand. “They didn’t buy my story. But then the cops showed up, and they actually believed me when I said he was my boyfriend.”

Kennedy’s expression mirrors Kim’s.

“The guy didn’t want to go back with me,” he says, lighting his fresh cigarette and sitting back in his chair.

_please don’t make me let go of me he’s lying_

“But the cops grabbed him by the arms….”

_hurting me you’re hurting_

“….and marched him back.”

_oh God please no don’t let it happen like this please God_

“We managed to kind of lever him up the stairs….”

_all my life I’ve tried to be a good person why have you abandoned me oh dear Christ_

“….and when we got into the apartment, he put his clothes back on and sat down on the couch. Didn’t holler or cry or anything. And the last thing the cops say to me is….”

_didn’t know I was naked until I saw my overalls folded up. like I lived there. like it really was my home. I was Adam in the garden, hiding from God. as I sat there, I felt myself begin to die, my head opening like a flower. the life congealed inside me and I felt myself as a soul in a collapsing house. once we were alone, he knew there was no need to drug me; I was at the end. he only hurried it up. the hole was already there, and the brain itself feels no pain. I remember, it’s sort of funny to me now, the cops said_

“….’you just take care of him.’ “

Jeff makes a sound. In a few years’ time, he will say it was a cough. He will insist that that’s all it was. Lying at Konerak’s feet, crying his big hazel eyes out, holding onto his ankles in supplication, he will plead with Konerak to believe him. But what Konerak hears that night is not a cough and it is not a grunt and it is most certainly not a sigh of regret. Jeff Dahmer, recalling the long death of his youngest victim, puffs a plume of smoke, and he _sniggers._

* * *

Christopher Scarver comes up behind Jeff in the bathroom. (Jamie’s fingernails no longer hurt Konerak when they dig into his arm.) Jeff looks over his shoulder, puffing a strand of blond hair out of his eyes. He glances at the dripping freeweight in a distracted kind of a way, then turns back to the scrubbing-brush. “I don’t care if I live or die, Chris,” he says, huffing a little with exertion. “Go ahead and kill me.”

Chris obligingly swings the weight. In time, people will say that he went at Jeff like a madman, but in reality, the procedure is not unlike what you might see in a slaughterhouse. It takes three blows to turn Jeff’s skull into a smashed-up mess. The blood flies off the bar and splatters on the opposite wall. Then, Chris drops the weight and goes to get his mop.

“Clean-up on aisle three,” Konerak says. Nobody laughs. “What? Too soon?”

“I don’t think he’s dead,” Hicks murmurs. He kneels down beside Jeff’s twitching body and puts his hand through his back. “Yep. Ticker’s still ticking.”

Eddie Smith frowns. “Surely not for long, though.”

Hicks makes a noncommittal noise, feeling Jeff’s belaboured heart. “I dunno. Hopefully. But let’s not jinx it.” He gets to his feet. “Everybody here?”

They are. Chris had been looking at Jeff funny for a half-hour before the attack, and word had spread. They stand around, tensely waiting to see if Jeff will die. His blood seeps, unimpeded, through their feet.

The minutes crawl past. Jeff’s breath comes snoring through his blood-clotted nose. Jamie shrugs and says, “Well, Christopher, you tried.” Chris doesn’t hear him. He’s mopping up stray urine in the cubicles.

When the COs come in and start hollering, it just compounds the disappointment. “Like, why bother?” Raymond asks, speaking for all of them. “Motherfucker won’t die. He’s gonna be a vegetable for the next fifty years while we do his time for him.”

They aren’t the only ghosts in the prison. Some of the other victims, having heard what happened through the undead grapevine, percolate into the toilet block to offer their sympathies.

“He might not live long,” a young woman says, peering at what’s left of Jeff’s face when the COs roll him onto his side. “That’s one mashed-up mug.”

“Doctors will find a way to fix him,” someone else sighs. “Those traitors love a challenge.”

The EMTs arrive, nearly slipping in the blood. “One down, one critical,” one says to the other. “Get this guy onto the stretcher first.”

“Heartbeat?” his friend asks, resuscitation bag at the ready.

The first EMT bends down and takes Jeff’s pulse beneath his jaw. “Yep, Fits and starts, though. We’re losing him.”

That gets everybody’s attention. “Losing him?” repeats Richard Guerrero, coming closer to appraise the situation. “Guys, don’t give up. Chris might just come through for us.”

The victims react like a herd of wild horses smelling ozone on the wind. They press forward, blending into the COs and the paramedics as they put a laryngeal tube down his throat to keep it open and roll him carefully onto the stretcher. They float alongside as they rush the trolley down the corridors and out the nearest exit, out through the gates they all passed through back in 1992 thinking they would never come back out. Into the ambulance they go. Jeff is immediately hooked up to an array of machinery. The first EMT checks the monitor, announces, “No pulse, Craig,” and rips apart his blood-soaked t-shirt. The ghosts watch, not daring to hope, as he affixes pads with wires trailing back into the resuscitation kit to Jeff’s chest. Jeff’s body leaps with the electricity, but apart from the expected spike of activity on the monitor, there’s no response. The EMT mutters something and tries again. Same result. Again.

The last shock dislodges Jeff from his earthly coil and spits him onto the floor of the ambulance, where he curls up like a shrimp and gasps wetly.

Everyone stands quite still. They had all thought, once, that when this moment came, they would celebrate. But this doesn’t feel like a victory.

“He’s dead,” the EMT calls out. “Eight-twenty-seven a.m.,” and at that moment the ghosts feel…lighter. Like dandelion seeds blown away from the plant by the wind.

Jeff looks up, sees them all, and says, “Oh dear sweet Jesus.”

“We’re losing hope he exists,” Curtis informs him, and has the honour of landing the first punch.

* * *

That afternoon, Konerak steps away from Jeff’s battered ghost, panting. “That felt really good,” he says. “Like, not as good as being alive, but still. Ten out of ten, would avenge myself again. So. What now?”

The others look around at each other. One or two shrug. Matt steps forward to take his turn. Jamie comes up to him and says quietly, “I dunno about you, but I figured an angel or something would have come to get us by now.”

Konerak nods numbly. Jamie sighs and continues, “Look, man, at least we’re free. Right? We can go anywhere we’d like now, free of charge, no passport necessary.”

“I thought we were gonna stick together.”

“I mean, I’d like to. In theory.” Jamie gives him a wan smile. “But I don’t think it’s gonna work out. Some of the guys would never have been friends if they weren’t basically forced to be together all the time.”

Konerak looks beyond him, at the crowd of young men who have been his family since the May of 1991. He’s seen them at their absolute lowest, when they saw their families at court but couldn’t hug them, when they all believed they would be trapped in the Columbia Correctional Center for decades. He loves them. He’d thought they felt the same away about each other. About him.

“Don’t cry, dude.” Jamie gives him a little shake. “You’ve cried enough.”

“I’m not,” Konerak replies, and takes a ragged breath. “You wanna help me test whether the forcefield or whatever is gone?”

Jamie smiles. “Of course.”

They drift out of the morgue, past the oblivious coroner weighing Jeff’s liver and murmuring into a recorder. Up the corridor they go, waiting for the barrier to stop them. But it doesn’t. They float up a staircase into the emergency department, chaotic with the living. Unseen and unstopped, they head for the exit.

It’s a cold, dull day outside, a real Wisconsin November, with a thin layer of snow already grey and slushy on the asphalt. Two women, one of them with her arm wrapped in a bloody tea towel, stride right through them. Konerak takes an unnecessary lungful of the freezing air.

“I think I might go home,” he says.

Jamie gives him a doubtful look. “For how long?”

“Forever.”

Jamie sighs and looks back over his shoulder. The room behind them is full of coughing and the squalling of babies. Nobody sees them standing there.

“Maybe one of these days I’ll swing by,” he offers. “We could go on adventures.”

“Maybe,” Konerak echoes. “Where will you go?”

Jamie squints out at the cityscape. “I think I might as well start looking for my mom. I think she lives in Tampa Bay now.”

“Good luck,” Konerak tells him, and means it. He gives him an awkward one-armed hug. “You’ve been a real good friend, Jamie. I won’t forget you.”

He leaves Jamie Doxtator in the doorway of the Divine Saviour ED and flies north, alone for the first time in three years.

Kim Leach appears next to him above Kenosha. “The apartment’s gone. Whole building got demolished.”

“I’m not going back to apartment, Kim. I’m going home to my parents.”

She hangs in the air alongside him. When she speaks, her tone is unbearably kind. “Konerak, they won’t be able to see you. It won’t be like before.”

“All I want is to be near them.”

“I know.” She sighs and looks down at the streets below. A seagull flies through her and squawks in surprise. She bats at it and continues, “I stay at my folks’ house nine months of the year. The rest of it, I travel. There’s a lot of victims out there. You could come with me one of these days. I could use some help.”

“I guess,” Konerak replies, making it sound like the brush-off he means it to be. “Look, I gotta go. My family needs me.”

“I know.” She glides up to him and gives him a kiss on the cheek. “Take good care of yourself now, Konerak.”

She disappears. He presses on. A moment later, he remembers that girl in the dark place, his unknowing friend, and wishes he had asked Kim who she was. Too late.

The sun has already set by the time he reaches his parents’ house on the northwest side of Milwaukee. He wishes Jeff had had the decency to get his ticket punched on a fine early-summer evening, for then he might be able to pretend he had only been gone for a day. The snow doesn’t crunch beneath his tennis shoes as he walks up to the front door.

He steps through the door without opening it.

His parents are in the kitchen, quietly picking at their dinner. It smells like pork and rice, Konerak’s favourite. He stands in the doorway, watching them. They look so tired. He suddenly feels the same.

Not speaking, he pads over to an empty chair and sits down.

When the meal ends, he floats upwards, through the ceiling and into his bedroom. His bed is neatly made, which wasn’t exactly how he left it back in 1991, but his drawings are still on the walls. He touches one of them, wishing he could go back to when his biggest worry was making Michelangelo look the way he did on TV.

He goes further upward, into the rafters, where it is cool and dark and silent. Then he closes his eyes and lets go of himself, returning to the formless state he was pulled from after he died. He spreads down through the walls, travelling through wires and pipes. He infuses the house along with the heat from the radiators. He fills it as best as he can, short of getting back into his body and walking in whole.

* * *

“Hey, man.”

Konerak opens his eyes. He’s back in his bedroom. It’s bathed in warm sunlight, and birds are chirping outside. Also, his posters are gone, the walls have been repainted, and someone has changed his sheets. Jamie Doxtator hovers directly over him.

“Woah. Jamie? What are you doing here? I never gave you my address.”

“Yeah, I know. Dick move, by the way. I’ve been looking for you for years.”

“ _Years?!”_

“Yeah, man. It’s 1999.”

“God.” Konerak sits upright, scrubbing at his eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“Something big happened. I need your help.”

“Does it involve leaving my parents?”

Jamie bites his lip. “Um, only for a little while?”

“No dice! They need me!” Konerak scowls at Jamie, but his curiosity is piqued. “What happened, anyway?”

“Big mass murder. A couple of guys shot up a high school in Colorado. Thirteen dead. Then they shot themselves. Those kids are freaking out. Kim and all her friends are down there. The Gacy boys, too. Oh, man, you haven’t met those guys! They’re an absolute riot.”

“You got so many people down there already, what d’you need me for?”

“Aw, c’mon, Konerak.” Jamie gives him his trademark Eeyore look. “I haven’t seen you in such a long time. I kind of miss you.” When Konerak hesitates, he adds, “It’s just for one day. A day and a night at most. And, not for nothing, but it’s April! Nearly summertime! You can’t stay in your house in fine weather like this!”

Konerak sighs. “Just a day? You promise?”

Jamie nods.

“…Alright.”

His mother is napping on the couch; he kisses her forehead and whispers that he’ll be back soon. Then, he leads Jamie out of the house, where they ascend with the thermals and begin their southwesterly trek. The sky is endlessly blue; they go so high, it seems as though they are swimming through pure colour, towards a place of pain.


End file.
